A post on the
Bethesda Blog explains that Bethesda Softworks is moving on from
post-release development for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and there will be no
further DLC for the fifth installment in their RPG series, though they say there
are still "minor updates" to be done. They speak with pride about the
game's success, but say it's now time to turn their "full attention" to their
next major project, which has been in preproduction up until now:

Skyrim
has been a labor of love for us since we started designing it in 2006. We never
imagined it would become the phenomenon it has. And that is because of you, the
fans. It was all of you who made it a success. We can’t thank you enough for
embracing the game, spreading the word, and making it your own.

For the last year and a half we’ve been working on new content for Skyrim; from
the game updates, Creation Kit, Steam Workshop, Kinect support, to DLCs. Parts
of our team have also been in pre-production on our next major project, and that
game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it
our biggest and best work yet.

Even though we’re moving on, we’ll still have minor updates to Skyrim as needed.
We’ve invested so much of ourselves into Skyrim and will never truly say goodbye
to it.

We loved hearing your stories, your in-game triumphs, and your suggestions. One
thing stuck out to us through those emails, letters, and postings. And that is –
video games matter. They’re as important to you as they are to us. It’s not just
about entertainment, it’s about your time. And you chose to spend it with our
game.

Thank you again for all your support. We hope you stay engaged in the gaming
community here and elsewhere. Keep spreading the word. Games are the world’s
best entertainment because they can do what other forms cannot – fill you with
the wonder of exploration and the pride of accomplishment. We look forward to
sharing our next adventure with you.

FO3 was an amazing game and I liked it better than NV like many other people. It was ghastly if you were a fallout 1-2 fan and expected a clone of these, because it's a completely different game.

It had poor writing, poor system design, cookie-cutter dungeon design, decent art direction but some horrifically incompetent art (look at the proportions of the character models sometime, particularly their hands), poor loot progression (mortal sin for what was essentially a dungeon crawler), poor combat, and while it provided a whole world for you to explore, exploration by and large wasn't very rewarding. And of course it's technical design bore no resemblance whatsoever to the originals, the world didn't feel much like Fallout, and the story barely meshed with the proceeding titles, but hey I'll be kind and assume to be valid the argument that fans of a franchise shouldn't expect a truly "next-gen" sequel to be anything like its predecessors. Even then, however, you're still left with the fact that taken on its own merits, FO3 wasn't well designed at all. If you only judge a game by whether or not you had fun playing it, and not by how engaging or intriguing the gameplay that creates that fun is, then I guess FO3 was alright. But then you can have a lot of fun playing checkers, even though when compared to chess it's not a particularly interesting or compelling game.

Don't worry about FO3 fanboys. That game was so bad and was a disservice to the originals. I only give credit to Obsidian for TRYING to work with such a bad engine for NV. We will get our better spiritual successor with Wasteland 2, and other games like Shadowrun Returns proving that games don't need first person all the time, especially for RPG Strategy classics. These kids have no idea how amazing the original Fallouts were.

Played original fallout for some hours. It was shit, so I stopped playing :p. Bland, broken controls and kinda tedious to play. Maybe if I gave it more time it would have been good. I spent my time on good games that weren't tedious :p Hey, FO3 isn't my best game of all time or anything, but I really enjoyed it. Was it perfect? Hellz no.

I hope they are making Fallout 4 now. Unfortunately, hiring Obsidian to do it is a bit unrealistic because they are busy with their own game, Project Infinity. When they finish it, a Fallout: Something is very likely - a few weeks ago someone from Obsidian mentioned they would like to do it and Bethesda would like them to do it too.

FO3 was an amazing game and I liked it better than NV like many other people. It was ghastly if you were a fallout 1-2 fan and expected a clone of these, because it's a completely different game.

It had poor writing, poor system design, cookie-cutter dungeon design, decent art direction but some horrifically incompetent art (look at the proportions of the character models sometime, particularly their hands), poor loot progression (mortal sin for what was essentially a dungeon crawler), poor combat, and while it provided a whole world for you to explore, exploration by and large wasn't very rewarding. And of course it's technical design bore no resemblance whatsoever to the originals, the world didn't feel much like Fallout, and the story barely meshed with the proceeding titles, but hey I'll be kind and assume to be valid the argument that fans of a franchise shouldn't expect a truly "next-gen" sequel to be anything like its predecessors. Even then, however, you're still left with the fact that taken on its own merits, FO3 wasn't well designed at all. If you only judge a game by whether or not you had fun playing it, and not by how engaging or intriguing the gameplay that creates that fun is, then I guess FO3 was alright. But then you can have a lot of fun playing checkers, even though when compared to chess it's not a particularly interesting or compelling game.

Don't worry about FO3 fanboys. That game was so bad and was a disservice to the originals. I only give credit to Obsidian for TRYING to work with such a bad engine for NV. We will get our better spiritual successor with Wasteland 2, and other games like Shadowrun Returns proving that games don't need first person all the time, especially for RPG Strategy classics. These kids have no idea how amazing the original Fallouts were.

Verno wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 12:26:I'd like to see a new combat engine more than anything else, Skyrim is so stiff and unresponsive compared to other RPG/ARPGs. I really enjoyed exploring Skyrim but the writing (outside of lore books) and combat felt really mediocre.

An improved system based on the one from Chivalry as well as hiring new animators to do NPC animations and I'll play that beast for years.

Riker wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 13:27:Jesus, they've spent all this time since release working on DLC?!? Uggghhh.

My feelings exactly.. Sheesh I thought they'd be at least a year into the next game! I have yet to play Dragonborn but all the DLC they put out didn't come across as needing eighteen months to develop by the entire Skyrim staff.

I'm also really hoping for FO4, not another ES just yet. Especially since it seems like they need to step up their game as far as creating a well polished RPG experience. Skyrim Redone to the rescue.

I liked Beth's allusion to "time"...meaning that, it seems to me, they had no "15-20-hour" game ripoffs anywhere in the planning stages.Last company I heard publicly remark that it believed its games were "too long" was Gas Powered Games--and look where that strategy put them. Bethesda has the right of it.

It is well known that I do not make mistakes--so if you should happen across a mistake in anything I have written, be assured that I did not write it!

FO3 was an amazing game and I liked it better than NV like many other people. It was ghastly if you were a fallout 1-2 fan and expected a clone of these, because it's a completely different game.

It had poor writing, poor system design, cookie-cutter dungeon design, decent art direction but some horrifically incompetent art (look at the proportions of the character models sometime, particularly their hands), poor loot progression (mortal sin for what was essentially a dungeon crawler), poor combat, and while it provided a whole world for you to explore, exploration by and large wasn't very rewarding. And of course it's technical design bore no resemblance whatsoever to the originals, the world didn't feel much like Fallout, and the story barely meshed with the proceeding titles, but hey I'll be kind and assume to be valid the argument that fans of a franchise shouldn't expect a truly "next-gen" sequel to be anything like its predecessors. Even then, however, you're still left with the fact that taken on its own merits, FO3 wasn't well designed at all. If you only judge a game by whether or not you had fun playing it, and not by how engaging or intriguing the gameplay that creates that fun is, then I guess FO3 was alright. But then you can have a lot of fun playing checkers, even though when compared to chess it's not a particularly interesting or compelling game.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 13:59:Very impressed with the level of support they've given Skyrim but I really hope their next title isn't leashed to a 6 year old version of Gamebryo. Their tech is desperate for an update and it would be nice to get an actual new engine, as opposed to Todd Howard blatantly lying and calling it an "all-new engine" when it was really just them renaming Gamebryo because its original makers went under and they were allowed to rename it as a result.

They just did their all new engine, though. Yeah, it isn't all new, really at all, but my guess is that they get one more title out of it before doing a new all new engine, which may or may not be all new.

They're at a bad point for that, though. Doing something on this engine lets them dual release on next gen and current gen, but if it's more than, say, 8 months after the launch of the new consoles it'll look awful on them.

One of the southern provinces makes logical sense, given that we've already seen games covering Hammerfell & Highrock (Daggerfall), Morrowind, Cyrodil (Oblivion), and Skyrim. Blackmarsh probably has the most potential for lots of cool creepy crawlies given it's lack of civilization and subtropical location. They could introduce some cool stuff like a voodoo magic system.

Yeah, I view the timing of announcement as saying, "New consoles are soon to be released, so we're going to ramp up the next version of TES so we can release on them in the next year or two." Given the high specs of the next consoles, the next TES game shouldn't be too crippled by being developed for both consoles and PCs. Let's just hope that Zenimax isn't secretly developing a Steam competitor.

Cutter wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 14:07:Why do you all want Elswyr so much? I"d much rather have the Black Marsh. Utilize some underwater adventures with the Argonians. Ruined towers in the swamps, trolls, etc. Black Marsh would be hella more cool than Elsewyr!

Black Marsh is swamps (we've had a lot of it in Morrowind) and Elsweir is plains (boooring). I vote Valenwood or summerset island

Rattlehead wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 11:43:Good, now get to work on Fallout 4.

Good god, no. Skyrim vastly exceeded expectations and was a superb title, but it only exceeded expectations because Fallout 3 was so ghastly. Bethesda needs to stick to what they do well rather than mangling vastly different franchises until they fit the mold that Bethesda has made for itself.

FO3 was an amazing game and I liked it better than NV like many other people. It was ghastly if you were a fallout 1-2 fan and expected a clone of these, because it's a completely different game.

As for the new engine. On one hand, yes, their engine is super old. On the other, it runs AMAZING and it's getting pretty decent looking now. If they start over with a new engine, a lot of effort will be put into implementing the base system and a lot less effort will be put into adding amazing features. Also, if they reuse the old engine, but use the next gen ressources, I'm sure they can do a major leap in graphics and world complexity.

Rattlehead wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 11:43:Good, now get to work on Fallout 4.

Good god, no. Skyrim vastly exceeded expectations and was a superb title, but it only exceeded expectations because Fallout 3 was so ghastly. Bethesda needs to stick to what they do well rather than mangling vastly different franchises until they fit the mold that Bethesda has made for itself.

Agreed. I'd much rather see Obsidian for FO4 after FONV and Bethsoft stick to TES.

"There are two kinds of people in this world; people who love delis, and people you shouldn’t associate with.” - Damon Runyan

Why do you all want Elswyr so much? I"d much rather have the Black Marsh. Utilize some underwater adventures with the Argonians. Ruined towers in the swamps, trolls, etc. Black Marsh would be hella more cool than Elsewyr!

"There are two kinds of people in this world; people who love delis, and people you shouldn’t associate with.” - Damon Runyan

Rattlehead wrote on Apr 15, 2013, 11:43:Good, now get to work on Fallout 4.

Good god, no. Skyrim vastly exceeded expectations and was a superb title, but it only exceeded expectations because Fallout 3 was so ghastly. Bethesda needs to stick to what they do well rather than mangling vastly different franchises until they fit the mold that Bethesda has made for itself.

Very impressed with the level of support they've given Skyrim but I really hope their next title isn't leashed to a 6 year old version of Gamebryo. Their tech is desperate for an update and it would be nice to get an actual new engine, as opposed to Todd Howard blatantly lying and calling it an "all-new engine" when it was really just them renaming Gamebryo because its original makers went under and they were allowed to rename it as a result.

Really? Wow. And there's still enough stuff leftover that they could make 5-8 more DLC and milk it, still got the Thalamor, stuff that happened in the Dragonborn DLC, is the main protagonist actually dead or not? Or is that being saved for a future TES game. Well I'm hoping Black Marsh, because then with any chance we'll get into Morrowind again.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken